Quantum Mirror Series 3
by Deacon Heller
Summary: SG10 visits a strange world of ancient and overgrown ruins, and they find the natives are somewhat hostile.


The gate closed behind them as SG10 walked down the stone steps into the marshy water that flooded the partially sunken streets of the ancient city. The stone buildings were surrounded by a thick green jungle and over grown with moss and vines. Massive trees crept back into the city over the centuries growing over and between the temples.

"Wooooo!" Colt bellowed as he walked out of the event horizon.

"I think it's actually more humid here than on Alpha Base." Ward said as he stepped down into the water. The ground beneath was paved with stone at some point in the distant past, but the water crept in as the city sank.

"This place looks deserted." Ford said. "How long do you think?"

"At least a few hundred years, depending on how fast this jungle grows." Colt answered.

"Spread out and stay alert. This look familiar Natock?" Ford asked.

"No."

The city sprawled in every direction around the gate. At one time a thriving metropolis, but now it lay crumbling and sinking slowly into the water.

"Colt?" Ford asked pointing at the temples.

"These temples look very similar to the ones in Thailand. The jungle even looks the same."

"You think there's a connection?" Jefferson asked.

"Somehow there always is." Colt said as he wadded past a shattered fountain between the buildings. "We should take a look at that temple in the distance. It's the biggest thing around here, so that should make it the most important. There may be some records there."

They walked in silence for fifteen minutes through the knee deep water. Each of them watched carefully as shapes of varying size and color slithered past their legs in the water. The jungle buzzed with insects and small animals that closely resembled birds, flittering through the trees. The life in the jungle became louder and louder as more time passed since the gate opened and closed, disturbing the animals.

When they reached the temple Colt noticed that it sloped slightly to one side. The base sank into the jungle marsh years ago. He wondered if the flooding was the cause or just the result of a natural disaster. Colt sloshed up the steps onto a stone terrace in front of the temple and looked around for inscriptions. He stepped over a massive tree root that was pushing its way between the stone tiles. Everyone else followed him up onto the dry terrace.

Colt carefully approached the main entrance to the temple and looked over the inscriptions around the door way. He folded the computer on his chest down and then opened it. He flipped the screen up in front of him and reached into a pouch on the back of his belt. He took out a small eight inch long light scanner. He plugged it into his computer and swept the scanner over the inscription. The red light from the hand unit created a three dimensional copy of the letters in his computer.

"Anything yet?" Ford asked as he stood beside Colt looking back into the jungle.

"Not yet. I need to scan as much of the text in as possible to get an accurate translation."

"I bet Dr. Jackson could do it in ten minutes." Ward said as he walked along the side of the temple looking up into the jungle canopy.

"I bet he can out-shoot you too." Colt barked. Ford smiled. "I need to add as much details as I can for context before I run the translation programs."

"What shall we do while we wait?" Natock asked.

"Look around for anything that seems important. Stay in radio contact." Ford said.

Colt walked into the temple and began scanning all the text he could find on the walls. Jefferson followed him as Colt passed through several small rooms.

"So if we find some sort of gold cache do we have to turn it in?" Jefferson asked as he looked around.

"I'm just going to assume that the answer to that would be yes, which is why we take as much as we can carry before we report it."

"Seriously?"

"Absolutely. I send stuff to my sister all the time. She stores it in her garage until I come visit. That reminds me, I need to go see her, my nephew has a birthday coming soon."

"Is that even legal?"

"He he he heeeeeee, not even a little." Colt said as he typed more information into the translation program.

Colt finished scanning the room and he led Jefferson down the long corridor into the center of the temple. It was a massive domed room three hundred feet tall and one hundred feet wide. Columns formed a ring in the center of the room around a throne that sat on a dais. In front of each column stood what looked like empty suits of armor complete with ceremonial weapons. Colt took out a camera and started snapping pictures of the short suits.

"These don't look human." Jefferson said to Colt.

"No, they don't." Colt said as he put the camera back into a pouch on his hip. He drew a sword from a scabbard hanging on the suit. "This does though. I guess swords are universal. Does this look like metal or stone to you?"

"I can't tell." Jefferson said as he leaned in to look at it.

"This merits further examination." Colt said as he took his back pack off and set in on the ground in front of him. He unfastened the belt from the suit and slid the sword back into the scabbard. He quickly drew out the matching knife and slipped it back into its sheath before he rolled the belt around the sword and stuffed it into his backpack. He slipped it back on and scanned the inscriptions around the throne.

Madison appeared in the doorway of the throne room half an hour later. "The sun is going down and Sergeant wants us to get back to the gate."

"We'll be out in five." Colt said as he slipped his hand scanner into the pouch. He stood there inputting data into the translation program for a few more minutes as Jefferson wondered around the room yanking on the vines that grew in through a massive crack in the dome. Colt finished and secured the computer to his chest. "Let's go."

Jefferson followed Colt out of the temple to the terrace where Ford, Natock and Madison stood waiting. Colt swung his M-4 back in front of his chest and followed Ford back towards the gate.

The sun dropped behind the canopy and the shadows were quickly growing dark. They walked slowly through the water until they got within sight of the gate. Ford signaled everyone to stop. There was a long flat head floating in the water ten feet in front of him. It looked like a crocodile.

"Everyone back away slowly. We need another way to get to the gate." Ford said quietly.

"Sergeant, we may have a problem." Ward said from the rear of the line. Colt risked a look over his shoulder. There were four more crocodile creatures approaching in the water behind them. The creatures began to hiss loudly and then the hiss rolled into a long deep oscillating growl. "We can't go backwards."

"Everyone to the right, we go between those two small buildings and circle around to the gate." Ford said as he took a small step to his right. That was when the situation became strange. The crocodile in front of Ford stood up. Water washed over it as it looked at Ford with its glossy black eyes. It was roughly the shape of a human, head, shoulders, arms, a torso, legs and a tail. The crocodile creature stood four feet tall and tilted it's head slightly as it looked at Ford. The Sergeant raised his rifle aiming at where he suspected a heart might be. "Colt, go."

Colt was slow and deliberate about moving to the side between the two small stone buildings. Madison followed him slowly as he did. Jefferson and Natock followed as Ford backed up and Ward stepped further away from the four crocodile mean that were watching him. They stepped through the buildings and came out around the other side. Ford saw that the one that looked at him was still standing in the same spot, but more swam up and stood between them and the gate. Ford continued to step slowly to the right, and everyone followed. The creatures moved with him, always staying between them and the gate.

"These things are not going to let us back through the gate." Ward said quietly as he watched them.

"I'm going to fire a warning shot." Ford said loud enough for everyone to hear. He fired one round in the air, but rather than run they charged. Ford fired first. It took several shots before the creature dropped face first into the water. Everyone else began firing an instant later. The creatures began swarming them. They seemed to be coming towards them from behind the gate. "Fall back!"

They began to retreat from the gate towards the large temple behind them. They leap frogged back as they fired on the creatures until they made it to the terrace in front of the temple. Ward ran to the door and took up a firing position while Natock sprinted halfway to the door and turned to fire his staff weapon at the creatures. The rest of the squad ran to the door.

Colt was the first one inside. He sprinted down the corridor into the massive open room and immediately spun around to make sure there were no crocodile men in the room before he ran back to the end of the corridor, then he dropped to one knee against the wall aiming his rifle at the open doorway. Jefferson and Madison came next, then Ford. Ward and Natock ran down the corridor last. The creatures swarmed into the doorway but couldn't get past the wall of fire that the squad laid down.

"Colt, find a room we can defend." Ford shouted over the gun fire.

Colt turned and ran through the large throne room to the wall behind the throne. He scanned it for any sign of a hidden door. The gunfire continued at the same intensity while he searched for some indication of a mechanism that implied another door or room, but he saw nothing. He ran his hands over the wall and the symbols until he found one raised above the others. He looked at it carefully for a second before pressing it.

A seam appeared in the wall to his left, and the stone wall slid back fifteen inches and then the door slid to the right. Colt stepped back and raised his rifle, he pointed it into the darkened room and carefully walked in. When he saw it was empty and secure he backed out and ran across the throne room.

"I have a safe room." Colt yelled at Ford.

"Fall back!" Ford shouted again.

Colt ran back to the door that he opened and took a firing position, while the other leap frogged back into the room. The creatures carefully tried to creep through the tunnel into the throne room.

"Shut the door Colt." Ford growled.

"I'm trying." Colt snapped as he looked for some sort of raised symbol resembling the other one. Finally he found another raised symbol hidden in the text carved on the wall beside the door. It was the same as the other symbol, only it was inverted. Colt pressed it and waited as the mechanism slowly began to move the door. He glanced through the doorway at the creatures. They were streaming through the tunnel into the throne room now.

Jefferson jerked Colt back as Ward and Ford raised their rifles and began firing out into the large room. They fired until the door was all but shut. When it finally did they all stopped, gasping in the dark. Colt dug the flashlight out of its pouch. Everyone else turned the lights on their rifles one.

"What is this room?" Ford asked Colt.

Colt looked around the room and found an altar at the far end. He walked over and examined it. Beside the alter there were two wide copper bowls that sat on low columns. Colt dug has hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a Zippo. He lit both of them and they gave a faint orange glow to that end of the room. Colt snapped his Zippo shut and shoved it back into this pocket. "I think it's a private prayer room or something."

Behind the alter were stone niches carved into the walls. In each one there were books bound in flat sheets of the same material as the weapons and suit or armor beside the throne. Colt took the first one out and put it on the altar to open it. The pages inside were paper thin hammered gold.

"Next question, what the hell were those things and why did they come at us?" Jefferson asked.

"Did anyone see any signs of them when we first arrived?" Colt asked the squad without looking up from the book. He drew out his scanner and opened the computer on his chest. They all shook their heads.

"Why?" Ford asked.

"It's getting dark, they may simply be nocturnal predators." Colt said as he began to scan the book.

"Well, if that's the case, we just wait them out until dawn and then get back to the gate." Ford said as he removed an empty magazine from his rifle and tossed it into the shadows. He drew another from the pouch on his chest and slammed it into his rifle. "So reload and get comfortable."

"If they are not?" Natock asked.

"We wait anyway. If they are nocturnal then they will go back to sleep and we leave. If they are not, then waiting ten hours won't make any difference. In the mean time, get comfortable." Ford said. "Colt I want a third option if we need it."

"Already on it." Colt said. He examined the gold sheets inside the booked. He scanned them carefully one by one before putting them back. When he was finished he sat on the step in front of the altar. He called up all the scans he'd done since they came through the gate and started the translation program. The screen flashed through all the scans and another window opened beside it. One by one individual symbols jumped from one window into the other and a corresponding letter from the alphabet appeared under them.

Colt sat and rubbed his chin as he watched. When it finished Colt ran the application program and it began to decode the text that he scanned. He waited two hours for the program to finish and he sat and read the computers best guess at a direct translation. "Ummm, shit."

"What?" Ford asked.

"Come here and look at this." Colt said. Everyone got up and walked over to look at Colt's computer. "I read everything that I could translate and it all points to a society as advanced if not more so than the ancient Mayan of earth. They understood mathematics, astronomy, architecture, but it mentions some kind of natural disaster. The computer can't translate what it was, but it lead to a serious decline in the culture. Even the writing changed towards the end, it got more basic and sloppy."

"So what does this mean for us?" Ford asked.

"These are the picture that I took of a suit of armor that was standing beside the throne out there." Colt said pointing towards the door. "Look at the helmet, and tell me if it would fit a human head."

"It would not." Natock said.

"But it looks like it would fit just fine on one of those..." Ford started.

"Killerous Crocus!" Colt blurted out. "No, wait, I can do better."

"Take your time, we've got plenty." Ford said as he walked back over to the wall and sat down.

They sat and waited the next twelve hours in the small room, and despite their protests Ford made them wait another two hours in hopes that it would put the sun directly over them. When Ford finally ordered Colt to open the door they rushed out, rifles ready. The throne room was empty and silent. They used only the lights on their rifles to exit the throne room. It was still night. At the end of the tunnel Ford peered out of the corridor into the jungle night sky.

"Colt?" Ford asked quietly.

"It's an alien planet, we have no way of knowing for sure how long the days or nights are." Colt answered quietly. "It could be another hour or another ten hours."

"They seem to have lost interest in us for the moment. This may be the best time to make a stealthy retreat to the gate." Natock said.

"I think he's right." Colt said as he smeared blood from the dead creatures on himself.

"What are you doing?" Jefferson asked.

"Masking my scent." Colt said.

They all looked at Ford, but he only shrugged. They all started smearing the thick blood on themselves. Ford signaled them out into the jungle. They crept slowly and quietly through the water as they made their way to the gate. They were within sight of the gate when Ford spotted one of the creatures by the DHD. There was no way to get to it without drawing another attack. The best they could do was get a close as possible.

The first one they shot was the creature sitting on the DHD. After that Colt sprinted to it and dialed the base. He stood there and waited for the red light on his GDO to turn green. He waited for the iris to open on the other side so they could go through. When he emptied his last magazine he let go of his rifle. It dangled in front of his chest from its sling. He drew his side arm, a .45, and kept firing. It too shortly ran out. Colt ran up to the gate and stood on the steps with his back to the event horizon.

He remembered that he packed a sword and the handle was poking out of his back pack. He reached up and yanked it free just as another creature sprang up beside him. He brought the blade down in a tight arc and almost severed the creatures head completely from its body. He hacked and slashed at two more creatures until he noticed the light on his GDO was now green.

"Get to the gate!" Colt screamed over the gun fire. They backed up to the gate firing at the creatures and one by one they backed through the event horizon. Colt stood in front of the gate with the sword held out. There were dozens of them now. The one at the base of the steps leapt up at Colt and slammed him backward through the light. When he rolled backwards down the stairs at the Alpha Base he wrestled himself free and to his feet. He yanked the blade from the creatures torso and began hacking it over and over until it stopped moving.

When he finally stopped and looked around his squad and dozens of other people stood around him, weapons drawn and aimed at the creature. Colt stumbled back and looked around until General Willis came sprinting across the plaza. Colt tossed the swords down on the stone floor.

"Hostile planet Sir." Colt said.

"No shit, Conan." Willis mumbled. Colt's knees wobbled and he fell over backwards shaking. "Get them to medical."

Colt sat on a bed in shorts and a t-shirt, freshly scrubbed and cleared for duty. His hands were still shaking a little. Ford came over and sat down beside him. He looked at Colt's hands.

"It's different every time." Ford said.

"My hands just won't stop shaking." Colt said quietly.

"You did good back there. You found us a safe room, and you held the gate so we could all get through."

"I feel like I screwed up."

"Why?"

"I blew through all of my ammunition."

"And then you got mid-evil on their asses!"

"Yeah, I kind of did, didn't I?"

"The squad's already calling you He-Man."

"Really?"

"N0, they're calling you She-Ra, Princess of Power."

"Dick." Colt finally laughed. "We need weapons that won't run out of ammo."

"If you can make a magic gun I'll use it." Ford said as he got up.

"Until then I'm taking that sword with me on every mission."

"No you're not." Ford said without looking back as he walked away. "This is science fiction, not fantasy."


End file.
